Auburn Across Alabama Exploring Impact: Auburn Outreach tour connects faculty with Gulf Coast communities

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Travelers taking a boat tourThis August, a group of faculty and staff embarked on an enlightening tour through some of Alabama’s most dynamic sites of research and community collaboration as part of the Auburn Across Alabama initiative. Participants engaged in a two-day learning experience in Mobile, Baldwin and Escambia counties.

In Mobile, the group visited Africatown to learn about the Clotilda—the last known slave ship to enter America—and engaged in dialogue with the ship’s descendants. Activities also included learning about the Auburn University Harrison School of Pharmacy’s joint program with the University of South Alabama and touring the Continental Kitchen, a nonprofit that empowers culinary entrepreneurs by offering a shared commissary kitchen for its members.

Travelers sitting and standing around the Gulf Coast Research and Extension Center signNext, participants traveled to Fairhope in Baldwin county to visit Auburn’s Gulf Coast Research and Extension Center. Associate Director Todd Frank and his staff shared research initiatives focused on agricultural innovation in the Gulf region.

The experience concluded with a visit to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and the Brewton Agricultural Research Unit in Escambia County. The group learned about the tribe’s Tribal Food Security Program, which focuses on sustainable systems that benefit both Native and non-Native communities. At the Brewton Agricultural Research Unit, participants were introduced to research on nematode control in crops, bioenergy and ornamental horticulture.

Travelers taking a group photo at an agricultural farmThis Auburn University Outreach experience was created in collaboration with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. County directors Millie Murphee, Cindy Knowlton and Sarah Butterworth, along with agents Alexia Mingo Simmons and Rebecca Catalena, were instrumental in connecting Auburn to these communities.

The 2025 Auburn Across Alabama faculty tour highlighted the Alabama Gulf Coast’s unique heritage of history, food, research and agriculture. Auburn University continues to support this region and many others across the state, fulfilling its land-grant mission to serve the people of Alabama. For more information about this experience, email the Office of Public Service ops@auburn.edu in Auburn Outreach - contact director, Jocelyn Vickers, Ph.D.

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